“Okay,” Zoe said at last. “I’ll do it. But you will try to be there most of the time?”
I nodded solemnly. “You bet.”
She relaxed a little and twirled the remains of the cone in her hand. “I guess it’s a good thing he’s dhampir. They look human, at least.”
“Yes,” I said, trying to hide a smile. I’d told myself the same thing when I’d been forced to travel with Rose Hathaway in Russia. Maybe this plan was crazy enough to work. “They certainly do.”
CHAPTER 7
ADRIAN
I WAS WORKING ON THAT STUPID SELF-PORTRAIT AGAIN.
My latest attempt was about to be discarded, not because of any spirit-induced pessimism, but because it just wasn’t any good. I mean, it was passable, and I probably could’ve come up with some plausible crap story about symbolism for my teacher. She would’ve bought it, and I could’ve gotten a decent grade. But I’d know the truth. This one was no good.
My mood was a little touchy today, mostly because I hadn’t slept well. I’d tossed and turned, unable to find deep sleep. Things had been made worse because Sydney wasn’t coming over today. She’d decided to stick around so that she and Zoe could do something immediately after classes ended. I understood the logic of keeping Sage Junior pacified, but that didn’t ease the ache of missing Sydney. At least we were scheduled for Friday dinner at Clarence’s tonight, but it was never the same when others were around.
The phone rang, jolting me out of my maudlin moment. I had to go on a mad search to find where it had slipped between the couch cushions and just barely managed to catch it before voice mail picked up. The caller was a total surprise.
“Your Majesty,” I said grandly.
“Hello, Adrian.” I could tell Lissa was already smiling. “How’s it going?”
“Oh, you know. The glam life of southern California. Palm trees and movie stars.” I slipped into my flippant mask easily, concealing what was really going on. Lissa wouldn’t have bought it if she were here in person, but over the phone, I was protected.
“Well, I hope you can drag yourself away from it because I have a . . . task for you.”
“Task?” Her word choice and change in tone tipped me off that something big was coming.
“There was another Strigoi restoration.”
Wow, the surprises just kept rolling in. “Who was it? And who the hell did it? You?”
“No—a different spirit user. One we didn’t know about. Her name is Nina Sinclair, and she just restored her sister. Olive.”
“Nina. Olive. Got it. Go on.”
Even I knew this was serious. The only thing even remotely as incredible as bringing someone back from the dead with spirit was restoring them from being a Strigoi. It was pretty difficult to do because it wasn’t just a matter of wielding a lot of spirit. You actually had to make sure the Strigoi was subdued. Then, the spirit user had to stake the Strigoi while working the magic. We directly knew of only three people this had happened to. We also didn’t know very many spirit users, so the discovery of a new one was a big deal.
“I need you to drop everything and go to them,” Lissa said. It wasn’t exactly her throne-room voice, but it was definitely the kind that didn’t expect an argument. “We need to find out if we can see anything in a newly saved person that might help us understand why they can’t be turned again. Sonya’s in Europe, and I can’t leave Court. You’re the only spirit user who can go and investigate on short notice.”
Now I understood the importance. Strigoi were made by two methods. One was if a Strigoi drained a victim and then gave blood back to him or her. Moroi could also turn by choice if they drained the person they were feeding from. We’d recently discovered that Strigoi who had been restored couldn’t be turned again. No one knew for sure if it was unique to them or if there was some way to use spirit to spread that ability to others. We couldn’t stop a Strigoi from killing someone through other means, but if there was a way to create magical protection to save others from being forced into that undead state, it could revolutionize our world. Sonya and I had worked for almost two months, running all sorts of tests and examinations to see if we could manipulate spirit into whatever it had done for the restored. No luck.
“Drop everything, huh?” I couldn’t help a little bitterness. Even though she knew I was in college, it could apparently be sidelined at a moment’s notice.
She sighed. “I know you’ve got things going on. I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it wasn’t crucial. She’s very recently restored—very recently. Less than twenty-four hours. If there’s some residual sign of what exactly happened in the process, we can’t waste a moment. We can get you on a flight to Dallas in a few hours. Rose and Dimitri are on their way there now.”
“Really?” At this point, there was really nothing I shouldn’t expect. Spending the weekend with my ex and her Russian warlord was probably just the warm-up for more shenanigans. “Well, at least he’ll have a chance to stock up on his Western wear.”
I could hear a hint of laughter in her voice. “You know why he has to go.”
I did. Dimitri Belikov was one of the lucky three—well, four now—who’d been restored. He didn’t have the ability to see spirit, but he did have the inside track on what it was like to suddenly “wake up” and realize you’d been a bloodthirsty monster who’d subsisted on the lives of innocents. Even I could appreciate how messed up that would make you. A little counseling from someone who’d gone through it would be useful, to say the least.
“I understand. And of course I’ll go, Your Majesty.”
“Don’t call me that. And don’t tell me you’re doing this just because you’re my subject. I hope you’ll do it because you’re my friend—and because it’s the right thing to do.” There was a plaintive note in her voice. It must be hard, I thought, when people saw you more as a queen than an actual person.
My next words were true. “I’m doing it for all of those reasons, cousin.”
“You haven’t called me that in a while,” she said fondly. We weren’t actually cousins, but it was a term of endearment the royal families often used with one another.
“I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Yeah.” Her voice grew wistful, and I again spared a thought for what it must be like to be a controversial eighteen-year-old queen with the weight of a nation thrust on your shoulders. “There wasn’t much time to talk at the wedding. How are you, Adrian? I mean, how are you really? With Jill . . . and everything . . .”
“You know how it is.” No flippancy. “Some days are better than others. What about you?”
There was a long silence. “The same. I didn’t realize how much Rose was helping me until our bond went away. She was shouldering so much of that darkness. Now it’s all on me. Which is for the best,” she added quickly. “But it’s still hard.”
“I know.” I fully understood the burden of spirit and could only imagine how that would compound the stress of her position. “At least Jill and I haven’t reached that point. She’s safe.”
“For now,” said Lissa. “It took a little while before the darkness started seeping into Rose. If you guys can work on blocking each other, that’ll help out a lot.”
In more ways than one, I thought.
“Yeah, we’re working on that. Not much luck.”
We fell into another moment of silence, but it was comfortable. Even through the phone, there was a warmth and understanding between the two of us about spirit that no one—except Sonya and this Nina girl—could truly ever grasp. Spirit’s price was powerful.